


When Calls The Heart

by ThoughtfulBreadPolice



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Again, Death, F/F, F/M, Long Live Wakanda, M/M, Making Up, Post-Apocalypse, Thanos comes back, Thanos is not dead, and then some more, same sex relationships
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-07
Updated: 2019-06-25
Packaged: 2020-02-27 20:52:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18746899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThoughtfulBreadPolice/pseuds/ThoughtfulBreadPolice
Summary: The static crackled loudly as he turned the machines on, his grimy, unwashed face appearing in the cracked playback screen.Is anyone out there? Can anyone hear me? We need help. There are survivors here. Men, Women, what is left of our children. We are all that is left. The last of humankind. We need, we are dying. … Please, he-The old machines made one last feeble sound as they lost power and died.“Tony? Did it work?”I don’t know Clint. I just don’t know.“A post-apocalyptic world AU where the Avengers never came back from The Garden but Thanos did, leaving devastation in his wake.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Larissaloki](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Larissaloki/gifts), [Somiko_Raven](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Somiko_Raven/gifts).



> For Lara, who motivates me to write, and write more and is frank and honest and kind in all that she does.  
> \------
> 
> All mistakes are my own.  
> Currently unbeta'ed  
> \------  
> I really need to stop writing more fics until I finish what I've already got on the plate but I just can't help it.

 

The static was loud as he turned the machines on, his grimy, unwashed face appearing in the cracked playback screen.  

_ It’s day twelve of month One, year seven AT.  This is Tony Stark, broadcasting wide range, to anyone out there.  If there is anyone even left to receive this. It’s been about seven years, earth time, since Thanos.  After the snap, we thought… I don’t know what we thought. That we would heal? That we would grow again?  Heh. No one expected Thanos to come back. None of us expected it. In our grief, many of our defenders went after him.  They never came back. Dead, or stranded, we don’t know. But they never came back. _

_ Thanos.  Thanos came back. In his anger at what he called our arrogance, he purged the planet and destroyed the atmosphere.  Our world is a dead world now. No life grows on the surface, and the few of us that survived came here. _

_ In the final days, before the surface became uninhabitable I was able to send out a message across the planet to any survivors of The Purge, to make they're way here, to the underground.  Some made it, and I'm sure, many more perished in the journey… It’s here that we live now. In the dark. It’s… it’s…  _

_ Is there anyone out there?  Can anyone hear me? We need help.  There are survivors here. Men, Women, Children.  We are all that’s left. The last of humankind. We need, we are dying.  … Please, he- _

The old machines made one last feeble sound as it lost power and died.  It’d taken nearly seven years to get enough saved and stored just to run it for those precious few minutes.  Tony sobbed, silently to himself, and prayed to a god he didn’t believe in that somewhere out there, someone got the message. 

The Earth was dead.  The last of her people were dying, and there was no salvation to be found.  This broadcast had been the last hope for the human race. Few children had survived, and not one single child had been born in seven years.  Not one. The conditions they lived in were just, too bad. None of them were healthy and more died every day. Tony could not remember the last time any of them had bathed.  Water was far too precious and they were running out. When the last barrel… there was nothing left. Without water, they couldn’t grow the few foods that could grow in the dark.  That would be it for them.

“Tony? Did it work?”  

Before the snap, when Clint got to come home, Laura had told him exactly what Tony had done for them.  For her kids. She told him how Thadeus Ross had been after them. Leverage against the Rogue Hawkeye. Natasha’s data dump had put everything out there into the world.  Clint Barton and his alias had been put on a watch list. It was why he had retired in the first place, and Laura showed him no mercy in what she thought, what she felt, and what they were going to do next.

‘Not even your children know you now Clinton.  Nathaniel doesn’t know you., I don’t know you.’  Her accusations while true, still hurt, and they cut deeply into his core and shook something loose inside him that he hadn’t known was even there.

Later, after the divorce and the frankly one-sided custody battle that cost him his children, Clint had a sudden realization.  He wasn’t as angry as he had been before. He was sad, yes. Still angry, yes. But at himself. It was like the red haze that had been covering his brain was gone, and it was that, more than anything, that made him think.

And so when the snap happened, Clint had been too far away from anyone or anything to be of help, and it would take years to forgive himself for not being there, for not fighting alongside his friends instead of against them.  Though the thought of spending time around Wanda made him nervous, he should have been there. Maybe he wouldn’t have made a difference, but maybe his being there would have made all the difference in the world.

 

Clint, like what was left of the human race at the time, heard Tony’s final, worldwide broadcast.  It played for weeks over every frequency left before going silent, and unlike the hundreds of others traveling to what everyone hoped was the final refuge, Clint was one of the few that made it.  Shuri, and what was left of the Wakandan people, which totaled out to less than 30, none of them children, were some of the survivors.

They learned through Tony that what was left of the Avengers had gone to confront Thanos on the planet only known as The Garden, and had lost.  Dead or alive and stranded they didn’t know, but no help would come from Earth. Not now.

Clint prayed for them every night.  Not to any earthbound god or goddess, but to whatever, whoever, was left out there in the vast expanse of space.

Clint prayed that Tony’s message worked.  Maybe if it did, Tony would smile again.

“I don’t know Clint.  I just don’t know.” 

Tony sighed quietly, his head slumping in an expression of exhaustion and defeat.  It shouldn’t have been this way. He’d said that to Clint once, after their fights, and after they had reconciled and become friends again.  The process had taken a long time, but they’d done it. Tony only wished that it hadn’t been necessary.

“It should never have come to this, Clint.”  Tony waited for Clint’s ‘I know’. After all it was routine now, one of the few left to them, but instead this time, Clint just sighed and pulled Tony into an embrace, caging him in arms that lost strength by the day. “You’re getting scrawny Catniss.  You need to eat more.”

Clint huffed into Tony’s hair and said nothing.  What could he say to him that he hadn’t already said before? “Ton-”

“Are you ever going to actually take me to bed Clint? Or are we still in the denial phase?”

Clint laughed then, finally.  Tony had forgotten how good Clint’s laugh had always sounded to him,  But Clint’d had a family at the time, so Tony had tended to avoid being alone with the archer, and he knew Clint had always done the same.  

There was no one but them now, though.  No wife, No Pepper, and Clint pressed his dirty forehead to Tony’s own grimy one.  “Will you smile for me if I kiss you?”

“I’ll cry if you don’t”, and Clint gave a soft laugh.

Clint’s voice was all whiskey and smoke as he tilted his head to the side.  “Well, we can’t have that, can we?”

Tony’s voice own voice was high and breathless, as though Clint had already stolen all of the breath from his lungs.  “No, we really can’t.”

Clint kissed him then, and there was no gentleness to be found in it.  All open mouths and dripping of passion, Clint kissed him, and Tony felt the desperation.  The years of repressed feelings, the betrayals and slights, and all the years of kisses already missed, Tony felt it all and smiled.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For Lara  
> \----  
> all mistakes are my own

“You know what I miss, Tony?  Apple pie.” Tony snorted.

“I miss the Sun.”  Clint rolled over to face the genius under their shared blanket.  It had seen far better days their blanket, and was, most likely far filthier than they were.  But it kept out the growing chill.

It was so cold most of the time now.  “I think I like your answer better, though I still miss apple pie.”  

Tony gave a small huff of laughter, cracked dry lips stretching into a small smile that caused them to bleed.  “I wish I could make that for you Clint. Unfortunately, however, I don’t currently have access to a stove.” He trembled a little then, and Clint pulled him into his arms. 

The water had run out, finally, two years after Tony had broadcast Earth’s final message and plea for help.  It would take five more years to have enough energy to make another, and they would all be skeletons by then.  Dead and already rotted away.

Tony didn’t think he minded so much.  He had Clint after all, and later Shuri and M’Baku would come and crawl into their little hole in the wall as final night fell.  The four of them had worked hard to dig it out. Just big enough for the four of them, and MJ. MJ who had been one of Peter’s friends, who had loved the little spiderling like he was her own personal little brother.  She’d died a few weeks ago. A cough had settled deep in her lungs, stealing her breath, and one night she’d just never woken up.

They had all of them, taken her death hard.  M’baku especially had come to care for the spitfire girl like she was his own daughter.  He’d taken to teaching her everything he could about his people, and his tribe. 

So when Shuri had caught on to what M’Baku had been doing, she had taken MJ’s hands and blessed her as Wakandan.  M’baku had cried and promptly pierced her hears with his own and left them there. She’d called him a stupid old man before hugging him and calling him ‘Father’ for the first time.

Her death had changed M”Baku like nothing else ever had and he had withered in such a profound way that they could see it.  Shuri told them once, that It was just how Wakandan’s were. ‘We give bits of our soul you see, to those we take in as our own.  To those we love. Sometimes, we love someone so much that we give more than just a bit, and when they die, they take those pieces away with them.  I think, that M’Baku fell in love with one of the Avengers that stayed with us. He’d withered much already, and MJ I think reminded him of whomever they were.  Her death… M’Baku will follow them soon.’

Her smile had been so sad then.  She, MJ and M’Baku were the last Wakandans and she knew that sooner rather than later, M’Baku would leave them.  And she, Shuri, would be the last Wakandan.

It grieved them all.  But for now, they would huddle close during final night and when they woke up, if they woke up, they would see how many more of them didn’t.

 

Three days later, Tony woke up slow and knew instantly that something was wrong.  For starters, he was far colder than he should have been. Tony lifted his head and looked around.   Clint and Tony had taken to having Shuri sleep between them. She was smaller and so thin the could see nearly every bone, but she was still, thankfully, breathing.  He checked Clint next and his heart stopped when three, four, five seconds passed before the Archer took a slow rattling breath in. The infection that had taken MJ had gotten Clint and Tony knew with absolute certainty that when the man died, Tony would follow him.

M’Baku wasn’t breathing.  M’Baku wasn’t breathing but he was still warm, and Tony dove over the other two, startling them into painful, aching consciousness, in his rush to get to the big man and start breathing into his mouth.  One, two, three, and breath. One, two, three, and breath. Again, and again until finally, finally, M’Baku coughed a bone-shaking cough and breathed in.

Tony’s breath was ragged when he spoke.  “Do not. You can not. Not now. Not yet.”

M’Baku gave a small nod and agreed, ‘Not yet.’, and Shuri eyes dry from lack of water started to sob. ‘Not yet.’.

Two hours later, found Tony plastered to Clint’s side as he coughed up the blood that was filling his lungs.  “Please Clint, please. I know it’s selfish I know. Just, don’t… plea-

Tony and Clint lurched with the ground as it vibrated and shook dust down on them and around them.  “That was no earthquake.”

Clint agreed silently.  His throat was so dry from the lack of water and damaged from the cough that he’d lost the ability to speak some time ago.  More shaking had them heading to the entrance of the underground where they met Shuri and M’Baku along with the 75 other humans left and watched as the doors that had been shut a long, long time ago cracked open.

The harsh light blinded them all.  But they heard the doors as they ground and boomed close.  

“Tony?”  Tony looked in the direction of the voice, still blinded from the light that had poured into the darkness of their world.  “Tony Stark?”

Tony didn’t answer.  He couldn’t. He knew that voice.  He’d hoped and prayed and damned the owner of that voice for such a long time.  Long minutes of silence passed as Tony struggled only to find relief in M’Baku who finally voiced what he couldn’t.

“Steve?  Is that you white boy?”  

“Yes.” was all he said at first.  Their salvation found with a simple ‘yes.’ and Tony opened his mouth to say something, anything, to Steve.  He had so many questions. Only to cry out in denial as Clint took one shuddering final breath and collapsed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thank you to everyone who took the time to read. Comments are always welcome.


	3. Interlude

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For Lara  
> all mistakes are my own

_ (before the years AT [which refers to After Thanos, as the survivors of The Purge called it]) _

 

M’Baku blinked, eyes rapidly taking in the, quite frankly, mouth-watering site before him.  He hadn’t expected this. He was not ready for this. Every single one of his intentions had been geared towards disliking the people that had gained T’Challa’s respect.

Mostly because he knew it would irritate the King to know that he didn’t like or respect his new friends.

“Is there a reason you’re staring at me?”

M’Baku quirked a brow and leaned against the door frame, massive arms crossed his barrel-esque chest.  “Is there a reason you are naked, white boy?”

Steve gave a slow blink and looked down at himself. “I’m not. Naked that is.”

“Aren’t you?”  Steve looked up only to find himself nose to chest with the huge Wakandan. “Becuase these” and here M’Baku snapped the front band of Steve’s briefs, “Are very wet, and reveal much, white boy.”

“My name is Steve, not white boy.” 

M’Baku shrugged a shoulder and turned away.  “As you say, white boy.”

M’Baku will forever deny that he all but fled after that, completely blown by his reaction to the American hero, and his reaction to him.  It was most troubling and he determined to himself that no one would ever know.

 

Everyone knew.  Some way, somehow, everyone knew that he was attracted to his white boy.  The white boy. Everyone except the white boy who M’Baku seemed to keep running into, and he wondered suddenly if the man was aware that shirts were not actually supposed to be that tight on a person. M’Baku also tended to wonder what it would take to have said man remove said shirts.

But he digressed.  This was clearly all T’Challa’s fault, and Shuri’s.  The wicked princess had eyes and ears everywhere in the palace, which meant M’Baku was slipping and losing his touch if he’d forgotten such a vital fact.

Hi- The white boy was staring at him.  Perhaps something was off in his attire?  A quick glance down showed his wardrobe to be as it always was, far superior to T’Challa’s own.

M’Baku wondered briefly why he was being stared at.  Surely the … incident several months ago had been forgotten or passed off as some odd Wakandan thing.  Taking a chance and glancing at him, M’Baku accidentally made eye contact only to become fascinated by the sudden blush that appeared on Steve’s face.  M’Baku shifted his stance slightly, narrowed his eyes and smiled, only to smile even wider as the blush got darker and spread down his neck and under another tight shirt.  Remarkable.

 

Steve was not amused and turned his head away with a slight pout.  He should not be attracted to the Wakanda. M’Baku, his mind supplied.  T’Challa had said his name was M’Baku, and Steve had concluded that the tribal leader was rude, crass, and not attractive at all because of this.  He was also, consistently shirtless. It was off-putting, really. It was. 

Steve glanced up again only to startle, again, at finding himself nose to chest with the other man.

“Is there a reason you are blushing Steve?”

Steve scoffed, only to nearly bite his tongue off after saying “You know darn well why I’m blushing!”

M’Baku hummed, the sound reverberating loudly in Steve’s ears.  “Perhaps, Steven. Perhaps not. But I know why I stare and months denying this fact has made me…Come, white boy.  Let me show you Wakanda as it is meant to be seen.” and Steve god help him, agreed.

 

It was Steve would reflect later as he pressed blood covered hands into Rhode’s stomach in an effort to stop the bleeding, one of the best moment’s of his life.  M’Baku had taken all over Wakanda. Days spent exploring the small kingdom and nights under a blanket of endless stars.

M’Baku knew he grieved many things and never pressed, never asked.  It was a surprising but not unwelcome facet of a man that was generally regarded as a brute.  Steve no longer thought that. How could he? The passion and love M’Baku showed for Wakanda and all its people, not just his own tribe, was remarkable.  It had Steve falling and trusting a little more, and a little more, until one night Steve started talking.

About 1940’s Brooklyn and the experiment that turned him into a super soldier.  About the war and his drive to save Bucky. The ice and everything that happened after… Steve spoke, and M’Baku listened.  

 

They both fell in love.

Thousands of light years away, M’Baku reflected those same days and mourned.  He was a realist and at his core, no matter how his heart refused to accept it, that his white boy must be gone.

How could he not be, with the recking of the world at Thanos’ hands?  He regretted then, as another wave killed thousands more, that he’d never told Steve how he felt. Regretted never kissing him.

 

He should have said, ‘I love you.’ and regretted because he knew that his white boy … he knew that his Steve would have said, “I love you too.”.

  
  



	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For Lara
> 
> and
> 
> For Somiko_Raven, who helped me find the flow for this Chapter. This one is for you, doll.
> 
> \----  
> all mistakes are my own.

_ (before) _

 

_ Clint couldn’t hear anything but the rapid pounding of his heart as it struggled to keep his starving, sickly body from failing on it.  He didn’t see the bright light or the rumbling boom of the doors closing, and he certainly didn’t hear Steve’s voice.  _

_ But he could feel.  He could feel Tony. Every sharply jutting bone that threatened to break through rice paper thin skin. But he thought for a moment as his body finally failed him and collapsed, that he could hear Tony screaming, and wondered briefly why, before he stopped wondering anything at all. _

_ “No, no, no, no, no”.  It was all he could say.  Over and over as someone in another suit pulled him away.  He didn’t start fighting until someone else started taking Clint away, and Tony couldn’t have that.  They couldn’t take him. They couldn’t take Clint. Tony wouldn’t let them and promptly started screaming. _

_ (Now) _

 

“For fuck's sake!  Enough! Stop! Can’t you see that you are hurting him!”  Shuri was yelling at them now, loud and in their faces.

“Tony?  Tony, it’s Steve.  We’re going to try and save Clint okay? Just, just hang on, okay?”  He was pleading he knew, but he didn’t care. He’d never seen Tony so distraught, but Tony just kept struggling and screaming like he could hear Steve.

“You must send him to sleep, white boy.  It is the only way he will stop now.” 

M’Baku trembled as he spoke.  Steve, his Steve, his white boy was alive and whole and…

Steve gasped, at the voice from his every waking dream, and went to pinch the nerve in Tony’s neck only to be stopped by Rhodes almost forcefully removing Tony from the tight band of his arms.  

“Idiots.”  Was Rhodey’s only comment before carefully lowering Tony to the ground, and began talking to his best friend.  He spoke of their shared past, sharing with Tony everything he could think to remember. “You remember that Tones?  You were so damn nervous that my mom wouldn’t like you.” Rhodey laughed. Momma Rhodes had lived long enough to see both her boys returned home from Afganistan before passing away with both her sons by her side.

After what felt like an eternity to Tony, it was this he came back to.  His best friend alive and there and whole and holding on to him after a bad time.  Just like he always had been. Just like Tony thought he would never be able to experience again.  

“Momma Rhodes always did like me better.  I got the best cookies.” Rhodey laughed. 

“Whatever you say, Tony.” 

“You’re real...” his voice was full of a broken sort of awe that Jim wished he’d never have to hear again. Tony scrambled, trying to move only to collapse back into Rhodey. “Clint!  I need- Rhodey! Clint!”

Jim gripped Tony as tight as he dared. “It’s okay.  Tony, it’s okay! Clint’s already been taken to the med bay on the transport ship, and I’ll take you to him, right now in fact, but you have got to breathe Tony.  You’re hyperventilating again, and I can’t take you to him until you calm down a little, okay?”

Tony took deep shuddering breathes, as he followed Rhodey’s own, steady breathing, and slowly, far to slowly for Tony, began to breathe again.

“That’s really good Tones.  Real good. You ready to go check on Clint?”  Tony was up and moving towards the doors almost before Rhodey had finished speaking, leaving Jim to scramble after the other.  “Tony wait! You don’t know which way to go!”

“Well, he sure isn’t back there Rhodes!” Was Tony’s only response, as he kept going as fast as he could.  Clint was on the other side of those doors, and Tony was going to find him, guide or no guide.

 

“M’Baku?” Steve almost didn’t dare to turn and look. 

“White boy.  I have- you are- Steven-”  M’Baku sighed. Over seven years and words still evaded him when it came to the other male.

Steve aborted a sob as he finally turned, taking in the frail form that was once larger than life.  

“Bruce.  Get the rest of these people on the ship.  We’re getting out of here.” He never once took his eyes off M’Baku as he spoke, scared he would disappear like wisps of smoke if he so much as blinked.

“You would have loved her Steven.  She reminded me so much of you.” M’Baku’s voice broke as he tried to tell Steve about MJ, the daughter he had adopted in this new world.  There was so much he wanted to say, so much he wanted to tell, but he couldn’t. He was far too weak now and he was losing focus on Steve.

“Hey, hey” Steve’s voice sounded almost sad as he spoke. “Let’s get you on board and you can tell me all about her after we get you settled.”

“She was not my lover white boy.  I haven’t loved anyone since you. She was… a daughter and you would have loved her.”  Steve laughed a little, relieved, as he helped M’Baku to the doors that had held the last of the human race prisoner for so long. 

“I can’t wait to hear all about her doll.”  his white boy said and Steve’s smile was the last thing M’Baku saw as his grip on the waking world slackened and he fell deeply unconscious.  Steve faltered for a moment be for hauling M’Baku up, over his shoulder and running flat out to the doors, bypassing the other survivors and into the transport ships interior.

There were so many twists and turns that someone could get lost very quickly if the didn’t know where they were going.  But there was a trick to it, and Steve had memorized the layout quickly. Some minutes later, Steve arrived at the med bay, and lay M’Baku down on the next available cot before collapsing against the wall and slid down, to the cold metal floor beneath him.

It took a while for Steve to return to reality after that.  His head and his heart, had been full of grief and sadness for so long that to have some of that emotional weight lifted, and so suddenly, left him breathless, dizzy, and floundering.  M’Baku was alive. He was alive, and the proof of it was right there in front of him and Steve, having finally acknowledged this, broke down and cried. Deep heaving, frame wracking sobs left him as he shuddered and let out years of repressed emotion.

“Steve, Steve, it’s okay.”  It was Shuri. Shuri who so thin and frail and still seemed so strong, and he just cried harder.

“I know!  I know but I can’t’ and here another heavy sob,  ‘I can’t seem to stop! I can’t-”, and Shuri understood.  She knew eventually all of them would be like this in some manner or another.  Shuri understood and kissed Steve on his forehead, before allowing one of the medical personnel guide her to a cot next to M’Baku.

After he’d calmed enough, Steve finally looked away from M’Baku only to catch his eyes on a heartbreaking sight.  Tony was crying silently hand gripped painfully tight to Clint’s own, his head rested on the archer’s shoulder and it didn’t look like Clint was alive.


	5. Chapter 5

When he opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was the metal ceiling, which was alarming to a guy that had seen nothing but dirt ceilings for years.  The pain registered next. Bone deep and aching. Like someone had taken sandpaper to his bones and squeezed his muscles to tight and all at once, repeatedly.

He groaned low in his throat (that hurt too, like he’d been swallowing nails) and let his head drop to the side, and there was Tony.  Tony who was clean and sleeping and looked absolutely terrible. The fluorescent light of the room highlighting a to thin face. But it was Tony, and he was beautiful.

“Tony”  Clint’s voice was a low rasping, barely there thing so Clint tried again.  “Tony.” He tried to shift to his side and the spike of utter agony that rocked through his body had him crying out.  On the plus side, it had Tony waking up. It would have been almost comical if not for the sheer grief that clouded his face, before breaking into a look of aching hope.

“Clint?  Oh my god, Clint!”  Tony threw himself on Clint, which in hindsight was a bad idea, because Clint cried out again, and Tony backed away apologies spilling from cracked lips.

“No, no, no Tony, come back.  Come back here.” Clint said, pulling feebly at Tony’s hand.  “‘M okay honey come back.”

Tony shook his head. “You are not okay!  You, you almost died! You did die for a minute there.  You almost left me, you almost left me, and I was so scared, Clint!”  Tony shook his head, acutely aware that he was crying and not caring one iota.  It was a novel still, crying and having actual tears fall, where nothing had before.  They’d been so dehydrated.

Clint pulled again.  “I’m sorry Tony, I’m sorry, wasn’t my intention to leave you.  But I’m here, wherever here is. Please come here? I want to kiss you.”

“Oh you do, do you?”  A small barely there smile pulled at the corners of Tony’s mouth as Clint nodded and said “yes”, and how could Tony deny him?  He couldn’t. He’d probably never be able to, no matter what happened after this, so Tony leaned down and kissed him.

It wasn’t slow or gentle, but messy and hard and it expressed everything Tony had been feeling.  His grief and his love and his hope. Hope was a new one, but it was there, in that kiss and Tony hoped Clint could taste it in his mouth along with everything else, before he pulled away gasping.

Clint smiled.  “Okay, now I know I’m dreaming.  You taste like oranges. Oranges and hope, and we’ve been out of both for years.”

“You’re not dreaming sweetheart.  You’ve been asleep for a few weeks now, but you’re not dreaming. Our message worked Clint. It worked, and you’ll never guess who showed up.”

“Was it Santa Claus?” Clint asked, and then watched in delight as Tony laughed.

“No you dork.  It was Steve. Steve, and Bruce, and Thor, and Natasha.  They are alive. They’ve been alive this whole time, and they got our broadcast and came and got us.  It’s why you aren't - , well.”

Clint blinked rapidly, floored.  The other Avenger’s were alive? He remembered, someone showing up.  A painfully familiar voice and then… what? He thought, he thought maybe screaming.  Had Tony been screaming?  

“Did they hurt you?”  Tony looked shocked and shook his head.

“No? Why would you think that?”  Tony was perplexed. Why would Clint think that?

“I heard you screaming, before everything went black.  You were screaming!”

“Oh. Oh Clint, no.  I wasn’t screaming because they hurt me.  I screamed because you collapsed. You collapsed right there in my arms and you stopped breathing.  I just… lost it I guess. Without you I - I don’t want to be here without you, and I wasn’t - I should’ve -”

Clint made a shushing noise, and pulled Tony down to lay on the small cot with him and just held Tony as best he could.  Neither spoke. They didn’t need to. Clint understood the magnitude of what Tony had said, and didn’t, couldn’t say. He was the same way.  Without Tony-

But they were both still here. They’re co-dependency on each other didn’t bother him.  It would have once, a lifetime ago. But not now. Clint needed Tony like he needed air to breathe.  He’d suffocate without him, and Clint knew Tony felt the same.

Eventually, Clint felt himself growing tired again.  

“Hey Tony?  Stay with me?”  Tony hmmed into Clint’s neck.

“Forever, if that’s what you want Clint.”  

Clint kissed the top of his head and smiled when Tony hmmed again.  Forever sounded good to him.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been trying to keep the Chapters to minimum of 1,000 words but this one just wasn't going to. Kinda short, but I hope everyone is happy with it.
> 
> Feel free to leave a comment and let me know what you think!
> 
> Come find me on tumblr.

**Author's Note:**

> As always, thank you to everyone who took the time to read one of my works. Comments are always welcome, and yes even from you negative nancy's out there. Cause it lets me know you read it. Even if you didn't like it. :D


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